The world of trade and trade finance continues to evolve through technology advancements, and that trend showed no signs of slowing in 2019. From komgo gaining momentum to essDocs replacing Swift’s TSU, to a new marketplace for trade credit insurance, we explore the tech that shaped trade finance in 2019.

New trade finance technology solutions have grown to form a substantial and popular part of GTR’s online and print content over the last few years. By analysing article views and the average time spent on page, we have gathered our top trade finance tech stories of 2019.

In addition to the existing letter of credit product and KYC module, komgo also added two more products to its platform in June: standby letters of credit and receivables discounting, further bolstering its offerings.

we.trade is a solution for managing, tracking and protecting open account trade transactions between SMEs in Europe. Powered by Hyperledger Fabric and built by IBM, it aims to digitalise the whole trade process from order creation to payment execution. SMEs, who will be able to use we.trade via their banks, can also use the platform to access financial services.

UniCredit in Italy and KBC Bank in Belgium were the first banks to reveal that they had used the platform, in a tinplate trade transaction between metal packaging producer Gruppo ASA and its supplier, Steelforce.

3) Driving standards in distribution. In April, we reported that a group of global financial institutions had joined together to drive standardisation for the distribution of trade finance assets on a new fintech platform called the Trade Finance Distribution (TFD) Initiative.

The TFD Initiative is led by Tradeteq, a technology platform launched last year, and aims to push more non-bank investors to the asset class, thereby giving banks more capacity to originate new trade finance lending. Participants include ANZ, Crédit Agricole, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, ING, Lloyds Bank, Rabobank, Standard Bank, Standard Chartered and SMBC. Five more financial institutions joined the initiative in June: ABN Amro, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Crown Agents Bank, London Forfaiting Company and Natixis.

“If you think in terms of the structured credit world, there is a market for any bank product out there other than trade finance. You can purchase mortgage-backed securities, credit card debt, auto loans, anything which a bank provides, right now, this second. You cannot do this today with trade finance. But now that trade finance is being more digitalised, there is no reason why that asset class should not be available,” Christoph Gugelmann, founder and CEO of Tradeteq told GTR at the time.

4) essDocs replaces Swift’s TSU. At the end of 2018, Swift said it was in “discussions” about the future of its trade services utility (TSU) – the centralised matching and workflow engine that operates as the backbone for the bank payment obligation (BPO).

At that time, GTR learned that paperless trade platform provider essDocs could be the partner Swift was looking for to revive its TSU, although neither Swift nor essDocs were willing to confirm this.

Meanwhile, the BPO commercialisation group were working hard to increase adoption of BPO by the industry, but their efforts seemed to have come to naught when payments network Swift announced it would axe the TSUin April.

However, with essDocs’s announcement at the end of 2019 that several banks had commenced testing of its CargoDocs Transaction Matching Application (Cmatch), TSU’s replacement, it looks as if the BPO may yet live on.

essDocs’ co-founder Alexander Goulandris told GTR that Cmatch delivers a “future-proof offering”, as well as enables interoperability with blockchain platforms, something TSU doesn’t. “Essentially, we have copied the rules the TSU system uses, so if something matched in TSU it would match in Cmatch. But we’ve gone off and we’ve applied new design rules, so the solution is more user friendly, it has open APIs and the design is intuitive. It is simpler.” He added why he believes TSU failed to make a lasting impression: “The matching engine was limited in its scope, there was a lack of investment and there were issues on pricing; for some banks it seemed quite expensive.”

Glenn Kocher, managing director at LiquidX told GTR: “Today the process for the insured is expensive and opaque – you pick up the phone, call your broker, your broker goes out and talks to a bunch of underwriters, comes back with a bunch of quotes, and you have to try to figure out, how do you compare between them, and you don’t have any visibility or control of that process. And it takes a lot of time.”

6) Jasmine22 switches to Serai. In June, GTR learned that HSBC’s Jasmine22, a tech-based solution built on Google Cloud to support the trading needs of SMEs, was rebranded as Serai.

While little has been revealed about the venture since its inception in February, the solution is part of the bank’s technology investment into shaping the future of global trade, Vivek Ramachandran, CEO of the project, told GTR.

Trademark filings at the United States Patent and Trademark Office for Serai, indicated that it will involve “downloadable application software for a platform for an online network for small and medium-size businesses to connect and find financing services, namely loans”.

7) Linking up blockchains. Technology firm Quant Network launched what it hailed a “network of networks” to solve the problem of interoperability across blockchain platforms for trade and trade finance.

Revealed in September at Sibos, an annual banking conference run by Swift, Overledger Network uses the company’s Overledger operating system, a virtual blockchain that links existing blockchains and allows developers to build multi-chain applications.

Quant Network CEO Gilbert Verdian told GTR: “People have realised that they have to work together, so what is required is interoperability at scale.” He added that Overledger has already gained acceptance within financial services, following a partnership agreement signed in June with SIAchain, a private infrastructure leveraging on 570 European network nodes within SIAnet, a fibre optic network.

The platform, led by Santander, uses machine-learning technology to link up businesses that are looking to trade goods internationally by providing key market information such as rules on regulations, trade tariffs, currency analysis, market trends and shipping requirements, in a secure, online location. Companies are also able to seek advice on financial products from any one of the 14 alliance banks on the platform.

“This is a kind of startup,” Jon Barañano Gaviña, chairman of the Trade Club Alliance and business development director at Banco Santander told GTR at the event. “We are 14 banks coming together to explain to the world that we have created this ecosystem.”

Gaviña said that the bank’s initial aim was to create an efficient network for its customers looking to score sales overseas in regions lesser known to the bank, such as Africa and Asia, which meant it had to gain access to these markets. The key to achieving this is using local data supplied by the partner banks, he added.

9) HSBC rolls out trade finance tech. Over 2019, HSBC – the bank that our readers appear to be most interested in finding out more about – revealed two new tech solutions to help smooth the trade finance process: an anti-money laundering surveillance system for its global trade and receivables finance business and a new application programming interface (API) that enables its partner banks to issue local guarantees in markets where they do not have a presence.

Developed with fintech firm Quantexa, the AML system leverages big data, advanced analytics and automated monitoring to detect and intercept financial crime in international trade, doing so by combining customer and counterparty trade information, transactional data and external insights, such as company ownership information.

Meanwhile, the banking guarantee API allows HSBC partner banks to build applications for their customers, enabling them to have visibility of the status of their guarantees on their own banking platform, even though the guarantees are delivered by HSBC.

ING Bank and Standard Bank were the first two banks to have completed transactions using the technology.

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Privacy Policy

Our privacy commitments

This Privacy Policy outlines the information we may collect about you in relation to your use of our websites, events, related publications and services (“personal data”) and how we may use that personal data. It also outlines the methods by which we and our service providers may (subject to necessary consents) monitor your online behaviour to deliver customised advertisements, marketing materials and other tailored services. This Privacy Policy also tells you how you can verify the accuracy of your personal data and how you can request that we delete or update it.

This Privacy Policy applies to all websites operated by Exporta Publishing & Events Ltd (as indicated on the relevant website).

This privacy statement does not cover the activities of third parties, and you should consult those third-party sites’ privacy policies for information on how your data is used by them.

Any questions regarding this Policy and our privacy practices should be sent by e-mail to privacy@gtreview.com or by writing to Data Protection Officer at, Exporta Publishing & Events Ltd, 4 Hillgate Place, London, SW12 9ER, United Kingdom. Alternatively, you can telephone our London headquarters at +44 (0) 20 8673 9666.

Who are we?

Established in 2002 and with offices in London and Singapore, Exporta Publishing & Events Ltd is the world’s leading trade and trade finance media company, offering information, news, events and services for companies and individuals involved in global trade.

Our principal business activities are:

Business-to-Business financial publishing. We provide a range of products and services focused on international commodities, export, supply chain and trade finance markets including magazines, newsletters, electronic information and data

Organisers of seminars, conferences, training courses and exhibitions for the finance industry

Exporta Publishing & Events Ltd is a company registered in the United Kingdom with company number 4407327 | VAT Registration: 799 1585 59

Data Protection Policy

This Data Protection Policy explains when and why we collect personal information about people who visit our website, how we use it, the conditions under which we may disclose it to others and how we keep it secure.

Why do we collect information from you?

Our primary goal in collecting personal data from you is to give you an enjoyable customised experience whilst allowing us to provide services and features that will meet your needs.
We collect certain personal data from you, which you give to us when using our Site and/or registering or subscribing for our products and services. However, we also give you the option to access our Sites’ home pages without subscribing or registering or disclosing your personal data.

We also collect certain personal data from other group companies to whom you have given information through their websites (including, by way of example, Exporta Publishing & Events Ltd and subsidiaries, in accordance with the purposes listed below). Should we discover that any such personal data has been delivered to any of the Sites, we will remove that information as soon as possible.

Why this policy exists

This Data Protection Policy ensures Exporta Publishing & Events Ltd:

Complies with data protection law and follow good practice

Protects the rights of staff, customers and partners

Is open about how it stores and processes individuals’ data

pretexts itself from the risk of a data breach

We may change this Policy from time to time so please check this page occasionally to ensure that you’re happy with any changes. By using our website, you’re agreeing to be bound by this Policy.

Data protection law

The Data Protection Act 1998 described how organisations – including Exporta Publishing & Events Ltd – must collect, handle and store personal information. These rules apply regardless of whether data is stored electronically, on paper or on other materials. To comply with the law, personal information collected must be stored safely, not disclosed unlawfully and used fairly.

The Data Protection Act is underpinned by eight important principles. These say that personal data must:

Be processed fairly and lawfully

Be obtained only for specific, lawful purposes

Be adequate, relevant and not excessive

Be accurate and kept up to date

Not be held for any longer than necessary

Processed in accordance with the rights of data subjects

Be protected in appropriate ways

Not be transferred outside the European Economic Area (EEA), unless that country of territory also ensures an adequate level of protection

How do we collect information from you?

We obtain information about you when you use our website, for example, when you contact us about products and services, when you register for an event, register to receive eNewsletters, subscribe or register for a trial to our GTR magazine/website.

Types of Personal Data Held and its Use

1. Customer Services and Administration

On some Sites, Exporta Publishing & Events Ltd collects personal data such as your name, job title, department, company, e-mail, phone, work and/or home address, in order to register you for access to certain content, subscriptions and events. In addition, we may also store information including IP address and page analytics, including information regarding what pages are accessed, by whom and when.

This information is used to administer and deliver to you the products and/or services you have requested, to operate our Sites efficiently and improve our service to you, and to retain records of our business transactions and communications. By using the Sites and submitting personal information through the registration process you are agreeing that we may collect, hold, process and use your information (including personal information) for the purpose of providing you with the Site services and developing our business, which shall include (without limitation) the purposes described in the below paragraphs.

2. Monitoring use of our Sites

Where, as part of our Site services, we enable you to post information or materials on our Site, we may access and monitor any information which you upload or input, including in any password-protected sections. Subject to any necessary consents, we also monitor and/or record the different Sites you visit and actions taken on those Sites, e.g. content viewed or searched for. If you are a registered user (e.g. a subscriber or taking a trial), when you log on, this places a cookie on your machine. This enables your access to content and services that

are not publicly available. Once you are logged on, the actions you take – for example, viewing an article – will be recorded (subject to any necessary consents). We may use technology or a service provider to do this for us. This information may be used for one or more of the following purposes:

to fulfil our obligations to you;

to improve the efficiency, quality and design of our Sites and services;

to see which articles, features and services are most read and used

to track compliance with our terms and conditions of use, e.g. to ensure that you are acting within the scope of your user licence;

for advertising purposes, although the information used for these purposes does not identify you personally. Please see paragraph 5 below for more details;

to protect or comply with our legal rights and obligations; and

to enable our journalists to contact and interact with you online in connection with any content you may post to our Sites.

Please see paragraph 5 below for more information on cookies and similar technologies and a link to a page where you can turn them on or off.

3. Marketing

Some of your personal data collected under paragraphs 1 and 2 above may be used by us to contact you by e-mail, telephone and/or post for sending information or promotional material on our products and/or services and/or those of our other group companies. We give you the opportunity to opt-out of receiving marketing communications. Further detail can be found on the applicable Site and in the footer of each marketing communication sent by us, our group companies or service providers. See also “Consents and opt-outs” section below. We will not share your information with third parties for marketing purposes.

4. Profiling

We may analyse your personal information to create a profile of your interests and preferences so that we can contact you with information relevant to you.

5. Cookies and similar technologies

All our Sites use cookies and similar technical tools to collect information about your access to the Site and the services we provide.

What is a cookie?

When you enter some sites, your computer will be issued with a cookie. Cookies are text files that identify your computer to servers. Cookies in themselves do not identify the individual user, just the computer used.

Many sites do this whenever a user visits their site in order to track traffic flows, recording those areas of the site that have been visited by the computer in question, and for how long.

Users have the opportunity to set their computers to accept all cookies, to notify them when a cookie is issued, or not to receive cookies at any time. Selecting not to receive means that certain personalised services Exporta Publishing & Events Ltd offers cannot then be provided to that user.

Why do we use cookies?

Log In – Where we provide log in mechanisms for site users a cookie is created at login and for the duration of the session. Each cookie contains a unique reference number only (no personal information) which is used to confirm you are authorised.

Analytics – To allow us to keep track of traffic to our website we use cookies. The cookies simply tell us if you have previously visited our website so we can get more accurate figures for New vs Returning visitors.

We may use cookies to:

remember that you have used the Site before; this means we can identify the number of unique visitors we receive to different parts of the Site. This allows us to make sure we have enough capacity for the number of users that we get and make sure that the Site runs fast enough

remember your login session so you can move from one page to another within the Site;

store your preferences or your user name and password so that you do not need to input these details every time you visit the Site;

customise elements of the layout and/or content of the pages of Site for you;

record activity on our Sites so that we understand how you use our Sites enabling us to better tailor our content, services and marketing to your needs;

collect statistical information about how you use the Site so that we can improve the Site; and

gather information about the pages on the Site that you visit, and other information about other websites that you visit, so as to place you in a “market segment”. This information is only collected by reference to the IP address that you are using, but does include information about the county and city you are in, together with the name of your internet service provider.

Most web browsers automatically accept cookies but, if you prefer, you can change your browser to prevent that, or to notify you each time a cookie is set. You can also learn more about cookies in general by visiting www.allaboutcookies.org which includes additional useful information on cookies and how to block cookies using different types of browser. Please note however, that by blocking, deleting or turning off cookies used on the Site you may not be able to take full advantage of the Site.

6. E-mail tracking

E-mail tracking is a method for monitoring the e-mail delivery to those subscribers who have opted-in to receive marketing e-mails from GTR, including GTR Africa, GTR Asia, GTR Americas, GTR Europe, GTR Mena, GTR eNews, Third party e-mails and GTR Ventures.

Why do we track e-mails?

So that we can better understand our users’ needs, we track responses, subscription behaviour and engagement to our e-mails – for example, to see which links are the most popular in newsletters. They enable us to understand the consumers journey through metrics including open rate, click-through rate, bounces and unsubscribes. Any other purposes for which Exporta Publishing & Events Ltd wishes to use your personal data will be notified to you and your personal data will not be used for any such purpose without obtaining your prior consent.

How do you track GTR eNewsletters?

To do this, we use pixel GIFs, also known as “pixel tags” – these are small image files that are placed within the body of our e-mail messages. When that image is downloaded from our web servers, the e-mail is recorded as being opened. By using some form of digitally time-stamped record to reveal the exact time and date that an e-mail was received or opened, as well the IP address of the recipient.

7. Consents and opt-outs

You can give your consent to opt-out of all or any particular uses of your data as indicated above by:

Indicating at the point on the relevant Site where personal data is collected

Informing us by e-mail, post or phone

Updating your preferences on the applicable Site or eNewsletter (unsubscribe and preference options are available in the footer of each eNewsletter)

To turn cookies and similar technologies on and off, see the information in paragraph 5 above.
Any questions regarding consents and opt-outs should be sent by e-mail to privacy@gtreview.com or by writing to Data Protection Officer at, Exporta Publishing & Events Ltd, 4 Hillgate Place, London, SW12 9ER, United Kingdom. Alternatively, you can telephone our London headquarters at +44 (0) 20 8673 9666.

8. Disclosures

Information collected at one Site may be shared between Exporta Publishing & Events Ltd and other group companies for the purposes listed above.

We may transfer, sell or assign any of the information described in this policy to third parties as a result of a sale, merger, consolidation, change of control, transfer of assets or reorganisation of our business.

9. Public forums, message boards and blogs

Some of our Sites may have a message board, blogs or other facilities for user generated content available and users can participate in these facilities. Any information that is disclosed in these areas becomes public information and you should always be careful when deciding to disclose your personal information.

10. Data outside the EEA

Services on the Internet are accessible globally so collection and transmission of personal data is not always limited to one country. Exporta Publishing & Events Ltd may transfer your personal data, for the above-listed purposes to other third parties, which may be located outside the European Economic Area and/or with a different level of personal data protection. However, when conducting transfers, we take all necessary steps to ensure that your data is treated reasonably, securely and in accordance with this Privacy Statement.

Who has access to your information?

Confidentiality and Security of Your Personal Data

We are committed to keeping the data you provide us secure and will take reasonable precautions to protect your personal data from loss, misuse or alteration.

However, the transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure. Although we will do our best to protect your personal data, we cannot guarantee the security of your data transmitted to our Site; any transmission is at your own risk. Once we have received your information, we will use strict procedures and security features described above to try to prevent unauthorised access.

We have implemented information security policies, rules and technical measures to protect the personal data that we have under our control from:

unauthorised access

improper use or disclosure

unauthorised modification

unlawful destruction or accidental loss

All our employees, contractors and data processors (i.e. those who process your personal data on our behalf, for the purposes listed above), who have access to, and are associated with the processing of your personal data, are obliged to keep the information confidential and not use it for any other purpose than to carry out the services they are performing for us.

Responsibilities

Everyone who works for or with Exporta Publishing & Events Ltd has some responsibility for ensuring data is collected, stored and handled appropriately. Each team handling personal data must ensure that it is handled and processed in line with this policy and data protection principles. However, the following people have key areas of responsibility.
The board of directors is ultimately responsible for ensuring that Exporta Publishing & Events Ltd meets its legal obligations.

Name of Data Controller

The Data Controller is Exporta Publishing & Events Ltd. Exporta Publishing & Events Ltd is subject to the UK Data Protection Act 1998 and is registered in the UK with the Information Commissioner`s Office.

How to access, update and erase your personal information

If you wish to know whether we are keeping personal data about you, or if you have an enquiry about our privacy policy or your personal data held by us, in relation to any of the Sites, you can contact the Data Protection Officer via:

Upon request, we will provide you with a readable copy of the personal data which we keep about you. We may require proof of your identity and may charge a small fee (not exceeding the statutory maximum fee that can be charged) to cover administration and postage.

Exporta Publishing & Events Ltd allows you to challenge the data that we hold about you and, where appropriate in accordance with applicable laws, you may have your personal information:

erased

rectified or amended

completed

Disclosing data for other reasons

In certain circumstances, the Data Protection Act allows personal data to be disclosed to law enforcement agencies without the consent of the data subject. Under these circumstances, Exporta Publishing & Events Ltd, will disclose requested data. However, the Data Controller will ensure the request is legitimate, seeking assistance from the board and from the company’s legal advisors where necessary.

Changes to this Privacy Statement

We will occasionally update this Privacy Statement to reflect new legislation or industry practice, group company changes and customer feedback. We encourage you to review this Privacy Statement periodically to be informed of how we are protecting your personal data.

Providing information

Exporta Publishing & Events Ltd aims to ensure that individuals are aware that their data is being processed, and that they understand.

How the data is being used

How to exercise their rights

To this end, the company has a privacy statement, setting out how data relating to individuals is used by the company. This is available on request and available on the company’s website.

Review of this policy

We keep this Policy under regular review. This Privacy Statement was last updated in April 2018.